The death of a innocent girl
by WillowWisper
Summary: A little insight to Foxface/Finch's time during the 74th Hunger Games. Starts quite late in the games. I'm planning on doing something about her mutt in one of the chapters. :D Please review as i'd love constructive crit, what with being new to the site. xD
1. Chapter 1

I'm so hungry. I can't sleep from hunger. I've never been this hungry. It's almost amusing. Everything is to do with hunger. It's a hungry world. All of us. They're hungry for power and we're just, normal, plain sort of hunger. The kind of hunger I'm feeling right now. Just not as bad as I'm feeling. The word has lost its meaning the amount of times I've repeated it in my head. Shame the actual thing hasn't gone as well. The Hunger Games… Yeah, it's just a game to them. Watching me slowly getting thinner and weaker and starving to death on their giant screens and betting on how long it'll take before I die. The last parachute came eight days ago. I haven't eaten anything proper since then. I've chewed moss or eaten nuts and they've kept me alive for the past week. I wish I had a weapon or something to make a snare with. The squirrels, Mockingjays and other creatures taunt me from the trees. 'Finch can't catch us!' the chirp to each other 'Finch has no weapons!' and 'We're so delicious but she can't set any traps!'

Maybe the intense hunger is making me go a bit strange in the head if I'm imaging the woodland creatures think like that. But who can blame me? I am being filmed every waking moment. Who wouldn't become a paranoid wreck?

I sit in my shelter staring out into the thick forest. The shelter is well build and keeps the rain out but not particularly camouflaged. Then again I haven't seen another tribute in goodness knows how long. It's weird to look into the distance and think that somewhere they're out there, fighting for their survival just like I am. Both from District 2, the boy from District 11, both from District 12 and me. A while back I heard an announcement that two victors could be crowned if they were from the same District. It doesn't mean much to me, the boy from mine is long dead, but it does mean that they are stronger together. Putting 100% into their alliance rather than not as much with the knowledge only one can survive. It means they are stronger…

Then I am jolted from my grim thoughts of how two people could work together to kill me (if the lack of food doesn't finish me off first) by a loud crackling and a booming voice.

I listen as a feast is advertised. Apparently all of us need something desperately and they're giving us a chance to get it. I know what I need. Food. At once I think: this is just a sure-fire way to get myself killed - little, weedy, starved, and un-armed me against the other contestants who know how to fight and probably have loads of weapons. But I need to go if I want a chance of survival. Perhaps if I outsmart the other contestants somehow… That is how I have survived so far, isn't it? Yes, I need to use my brain. To make sure it doesn't end up splattered on the ground. I laugh at my own dark humour for a moment. It's a cracked sort of laugh and the first in months.

I rock backwards and forwards for a minute with my grimy fingers pressed to my temples trying to think of a plan. Where did they say it would be, again? The cornucopia. The cornucopia! That's it! I can hide in the cornucopia tonight and then race out tomorrow, grab the pack and be gone before anyone else has got there. That way I only have to make the sprint once and they'll be too busy trying to protect their own packs before they go after anyone else.

"You're a genius, Finch." I say to myself, with a sly grin.

Then I burst out laughing again.

It's cold in the cornucopia. I lean up against the freezing metal sides and try to sleep. I'll need sleep so my reflexes are better in the morning. Wait! No! I can't sleep! What if someone else has the same idea as me, comes here and finds me sleeping? I'd be as good as dead. I _would_ be dead. No I can't sleep. _This will be a long night_, I think to myself… And it is.


	2. Chapter 2

Adrenaline pumps through my veins. Blood pumps in my ears. My heart pumps in my chest.

The ground opens open. A silver table is coming up from the dark hole. The ground closes around the legs of the table. I have a split second to take in the packs and identify my own. There are four. One is tiny and dark green with the number 12 on, two are large and black with the numbers 2 and 11 on and mine is the medium tawny coloured bag with 5 on it. I grab it and race out. I don't encounter or see and other tributes which is amazingly lucky. I don't stop at all. I just run. I am, quite literally, running for my life. My legs are sore, my breath is coming in rasps and I collapse against a tree. I regain my breath and then decide to try and climb. I'm so weak it takes all my strength to haul myself up into one of the low branches. I've never been an excellent climber and it doesn't help that in my District there are hardly any trees. The one or two were much easier to scale than this one.

I manage with only a few scratches or scrapes and I stop when I begin to get too high for me to jump from. It's nowhere near as high as I'd like for it to be but I'm scared that if something happens I won't be able to get down or I might injure myself trying. I dive into my pack. The whole thing is full of food. It takes all my strength not to grab it all and scoff it down. I've got to make a decision. Do I eat lots now so I'm fatter and more prepared for when the food does run out? Or do I make it last a long time? The bad points of my first idea are that I will run out of food quicker. The bad parts of my second plan are that when I do run out I won't be as fat and I'll be in the situation I was before the feast… My head is too sore and the smell of the food is too enticing. So I decide to go half and half.

I grab a bread role and demolish it. When you are this hungry even the most simple food tastes amazing. It's such a strangely wonderful feeling. So strong and overwhelming I get caught up and before I know it I've eaten way too much.

_Stop Finch!_ I tell myself harshly. _You've got to stop!_

_But I'm still hungry_, says the whingey, childish little voice in my head.

_Live with it. You're going to be a lot hungrier if you eat it all and you run out, _I snap back.

_Is it really too bad to have another mouthful… Just another apple… please Finch? _

_No Finch! You can't! Shut up and stop moaning! _

_But I'm huuuuuuuuungry! It's not fair!_

_No it isn't, is it? It's not fair. They have loads of food but they're just watching me starve. They're watching us all starve. And the people in the Districts! All of us! _

Oh no. I'm talking to myself now… I try to please both the little voices by taking a tiny bite of some cheese but it doesn't work. It just makes me want more. I'm just no good at this.


	3. Chapter 3

Luckily I got back to my shelter before it started to rain. I sit inside peeling an orange while it pours down outside. And when I say pours down that is an understatement. Even my well-built handy work is letting a lot of water in so I fear to think of what could have happened to me if I'd stayed in the tree for the night. I jump as thunder booms outside, followed by a brilliant flash of lightening. This is not going to be a comfortable day at all.

I spent most of the morning stuck inside and trying to patch up the holes in the roof. I'm scared the rain is so heavy it might collapse the whole thing, though, so I don't tamper with it much. I treat myself to a bread roll for lunch. With the afternoon, comes no change to the dismal weather, so it looks like I'm going to end up cooped up all day. My thoughts turn to the other packs I saw on the table. I haven't actually pondered it much but now I'm beginning to wonder. I reckon 12 must have been some sort of medicine. In fact I'm sure of it. It was really small. But I can only guess at what the two large black rucksacks could have carried. Weapons, perhaps? Although 2 and 11 probably have enough of them already. If they're still alive that is. There are only four of us left now. I don't know what happened after I'd left the feast but I heard cannon when I was up in the tree. Annoyingly I have no idea who it was that died because I fell asleep before the anthem. Bad move. I need to be on top of the game. I can't afford to miss even the smallest changes.

I'm hoping it was somebody from one of the twosomes. But again, infuriatingly, I can only guess.

It's getting really close now. What will I do if I win? I've seen the victors and what they've become over the years. So consumed by grief or haunted by dark memories or with missing limbs. They all seem slightly lost. Oddballs. They don't fit in. Some turn to drink, others to drugs. Some want to forget. Some don't. I wonder what I'd become, if I live to find out. Would I slowly waste away? Become trapped in my own mind? I'd like to think I'd give all my winnings to the poor in my District, but I'm not sure if that's allowed. After all the victors are just… just… puppets and pieces in the game. They aren't allowed a say in how things go.

It's growing dark but I force myself to stay awake for the anthem. But it seems to be in vain. No deaths today. No wonder. Nobody wants to leave their hidey holes and safe spots to venture out into the rain and sleet, I'm betting.

I eat a few raisins and some mixed nuts before I curl up into a ball and fall asleep.

_Tomorrow will be a better day, _I tell myself as I'm drifting off.

I have a horrible dream that is so real seeming it's hard to tell myself otherwise. I dream that I am holding a long silver knife in my hand. I'm aware that I'm bleeding but this is a dream and so I'm not really in any pain. I don't question it. Three tributes lie, un-moving at my feet in pools of their own blood. The boy from 12 is knelt on the ground in front of me. He is wounded and un-armed. I raise my arms and stab him without thinking. He falls at my feet along with the others as the cannon goes off and a booming voice tells me I've won the 74th Hunger Games. A hovercraft comes down to pick me up and I climb the ladder into the arms of doctors, game-makers and stylists who are all wearing black as if in mourning. Then I'm sat in the hovercraft drinking bottle after bottle of spirits and whiskey and the like then I'm heaving it all up. Retching and gagging. Only it's not sick that I'm bringing up – it's the blood of the dead tributes.


	4. Chapter 4

I wake up drenched in sweat or rainwater (it's hard to tell which as it is still raining) and panting as If I've just run a mile. I feel sick. Very sick indeed but I'm afraid of vomiting after what I saw in the dream. Whenever I close my eyes I see the lifeless faces and the bloody knife in my dirty hands as if they've been imprinted on the inside of my eyelids. I crawl outside of my shelter and sit in the rain hoping it will cleanse my mind and my body. I sit there cross-legged for goodness knows how long. Only when I look down at my knees do I realised how drenched I am. I try to wring out my hair but there is no use. More rain just falls on it and I'm not getting back in my shelter. It's the only dry place I've got. Ugh… Another stalemate.

If I go back in the shelter I'll just get it all wet so I can't do that. But if I wait out here I'm just going to get wetter and wetter.

I guess I'm just going to have to sit out here getting freezing and waiting for the rain to stop.

_Stupid Finch!_ Scolds the grumpy, sensible voice, _you should have stayed in the dry shelter! _

_I had to get into the fresh air, _says the other voice_ I was suffocating in there you know! _

_No you weren't! It was only a dream!_

_It was a scary nightmare! _

_Grow up Finch. Your living a nightmare every day, you have to deal with it straight on if you ever want to get out. _

I need to eat but I'm not hungry after seeing all the blood. Instead I decide to go foraging. I'm already soaking wet, I can't get any wetter can I? Five minutes in I decide to conclude that yes I can, I am ankle-deep in mud and I've managed to get mud all over my hands. Sticky wet oozy mud. Yuck. The river is too deep to wash off in and the rain doesn't seem to be doing much good so instead I trudge back to my shelter empty handed and tired and muddy. I sit outside and feel miserable. This has got to end sometime soon. I can feel it coming on. I can feel that something is going to happen soon. I can almost taste the suspense in the air.

Boom! The noise of the cannon makes me jump out of my skin.

I rush into my shelter. Once I've calmed down a bit, started breathing properly, I realise that I've trailed mud into the shelter. Great. Just great. But then I realise with a jolt that the cannon meant another tribute has died! Goodness gracious. Three left. Although I'm still unsure of whom they might be… Well, I'm one step closer to home, anyway.


End file.
